Corporate Training Magazine

Aligning Diversity and Inclusion with Corporate Strategy
Vol 3 Issue 5- Sept 2007

By Simone Roe-Williams

Convincing your CEO of the importance of developing a diversity plan can be challenging, but getting the company to commit the time and resources for its implementation often poses even greater challenges and can face greater resistance.

"Can we afford the time for this? How will this add value to the company, our employees and shareholders? How long will this take, and how would we measure its results?"

If you're the one presenting the case for implementing a diversity strategy in your organization, you need to be able to answer these and other relevant questions and address any possible objections that may arise.

Peter Bye, president of MDB Group, takes this a step further, arguing that a better approach is to develop your plan in a way that builds in the answers right up front. He developed a six-step process that provides a diversity strategy framework and addresses some of the common obstacles and how to overcome or avoid them entirely.

Step 1. Form a Diverse Team and Establish It as a Diversity Council
Diversity is a culture change that must be tightly linked to business need, and that takes sustained commitment within the company. Your human capital management processes (e.g., performance management and succession planning) need to encourage this. Accordingly, you need team members who can drive this type of change.

Firstly, you need to carefully select team members and focus the group on the company's diversity strategy. Consider including the CEO or president; business unit leaders and senior leadership from key departments such as human resources, public relations and employee communications. Selected representatives from the company workforce should also be part of the diversity team.

Many companies make the mistake of allowing the group to become too large in an attempt to bring a greater diversity of representation and perspectives. The end result is often a group that becomes unmanageable. To prevent this, Bye recommends limiting membership to about 15 representatives in order to provide a balance between diversity and functionality. This can be done by designating a member from each demographic group to report progress and results back to their respective team. Additionally, team members can submit questions and feedback through their designated representative in order to provide input to the diversity team. For employee members, affinity network and group leaders are excellent candidates for team membership.

Group dynamics are crucial to the success of the team and the overall diversity strategy. Team members need to develop strong relationships so that conversations can 'go deep' while remaining respectful and productive. This means that any personality conflicts must be identified and addressed to build cohesion with all team members focused on a common set of objectives.

"A strong personal charter by your CEO or president about the business and competitive advantages of diversity and the importance they attach to this work at the team formation stage will help to establish a common focus and objective for the group. Developing an agreed-upon code of conduct and ensuring that all key functional areas within the organization have representation on the diversity committee will also help to preemptively address and potentially eliminate any possible future conflicts. Further steps include briefing the team about diversity and its linkage to business results," asserted Bye.

Step 2. Assess the Current Work Environment
In this stage, the team develops an understanding of the current work environment in the company. Take the time to make an honest inventory for an inclusive work environment:

What is the demographic breakdown among the workforce and at the executive level based on age, gender and ethnicity, and how does this compare to national population ratios?
Is the proportion of exiting employees higher for any demographic group(s)?
Do all employees have an equally supportive work environment and equal access to development opportunities and assignments?
What emphasis does the organization put on doing business with companies owned and/or operated by minorities and women?
How do other organizations and the general public regard the organization and its diversity image and reputation?

The answers to some of the questions may be readily available within the company's knowledge base. Internal sources may include employee opinion surveys and workplace complaints. External sources such as customer and supplier satisfaction surveys as well as non-partisan industry and community groups can also provide valuable insights.

If insufficient existing information is available, companies may choose to conduct focus groups and interviews to gather additional data. Using a set of consistent open-ended questions will help to ensure more consistent and detailed data across all demographic groups.

Step 3. Determine Stakeholders Most Important to Your Company
Develop a list of the people and functions--both internal and external--that are most important to your organization's overall success. Internal stakeholders may include senior management, team leaders and informal leaders at various levels of the organization. Common external stakeholders include shareholders, regulatory authorities, suppliers and community leaders.

Step 4. Develop a Picture of What Success Looks Like
Start by identifying your organization's primary business drivers--revenue, expenses, company reputation. Using the assessment results identified in Step 2, determine how to improve these drivers. This may involve gathering input from key internal and external stakeholders. Industry benchmarking surveys are another source to consult.

Bye advised, "Be specific. Statements like 'being more profitable' or 'becoming an industry leader' are too vague and undefined to provide any meaningful purpose. Instead, define a numerical annual net profit value, or lay out in detail what being an industry leader encompasses."

Step 5. Establish Long-Term Goals and Initial Objectives
With a clear vision of what success looks like to your organization, it's time to establish short-, mid- and long-range objectives that will lead the company to achieving its desired vision of success. Industry benchmarks can prove useful for defining best practices and setting realistic timelines based on other companies' past experiences. Other types of information that benchmarking can provide include:

The business impact of working on diversity
How other executives focus their time and energy on a diversity initiative
Sources of effective training, development and consulting expertise
How other companies have communicated to their employees about diversity
How companies measure their progress

Step 6. Monitor Progress, Communicate and Adjust as Needed
Once the process has been set in motion, companies should monitor and evaluate its progress. For some goals (particularly those that are more critical, sensitive or prone to fluctuations), it's advisable to monitor more frequently. Others that will take more time to show meaningful change can be monitored annually.

Because the process involves the committed and coordinated efforts of numerous stakeholders within and outside the organization, it's important to keep everyone focused on the strategy and apprised of the progress and results. 'Communicating in the context' frames all communications in the perspective of identifying the need, the overall plan and the specific topic or results under discussion.

Keep everyone aware of the strategy, progress and results. Bye explained, "There is tremendous value in continually reminding everyone of the big picture and your continuing focus on diversity. Assume that you must communicate at least every six months--and preferably more frequently--about your diversity initiative to keep it fresh in the minds of your audience.

"Your communications plan also needs to engage everyone. Your best communication tools: sample annual objectives, briefings with local diversity councils, tools to enhance team effectiveness, recruiting aids and the like. Always consider the sensitivity of the information you are about to communicate. Some aspects of profile representation data, staffing decisions and corporate policies and positions may be too sensitive to communicate widely. When in doubt, confer with your HR policy and public relations strategists," he added.

Finally, recognize that the diversity plan is a 'living document' and should be reviewed and updated as progress is made, the needs of the organization change and the expectations of primary internal and external stakeholders evolve.